Paul Murphy

(LinuxWorld) — When SCO filed its lawsuit against IBM, Linuxworld.com editor Mark Cappel summarized the complaint as: SCO claims IBM is destroying the Unix market by taking knowledge the company gained via its source-code license to Unix and sharing this knowledge with the Linux ... (more)

(LinuxWorld) — Does what Microsoft is doing with XML spell the end for open-source office applications in general and OpenOffice.org in particular? Gary Edwards, a design consultant for Web applications and OpenOffice.org's representative on the OASIS Open Office XML Format Techni... (more)

(LinuxWorld) — The purpose of this article is to examine the long-term effects of the Unix vs. Windows decision with respect to the business needs of a hypothetical medium-size auditing and related services firm — the same one featured in my earlier article about the Happy Valley... (more)

(LinuxWorld) — This article compares the Microsoft client/server architecture to the Unix approach in terms of systems decisions facing a university faculty. To put this in context, imagine that you are being interviewed for a job as the faculty's systems manager. The chair... (more)

(LinuxWorld) — Sun made a tiny profit on operations during the quarter ending Dec. 29, 2002, and posted its worst-ever quarterly results. That the books could show a loss of nearly $2.5 billion for a period during which the company made money is a counterintuitive but natur... (more)

(LinuxWorld) — The big issue in getting the Cocoon-enabled Nichievo prototype to work was figuring out how to let users submit order documents without compromising security. The obvious finally dawned on me: Before submission, the documents are not yet secure. As a result, ... (more)

(LinuxWorld) — I once had a professor who claimed he decided to teach computer science because it was the only way he could get to play with the toys without having to deal with users. He's dead now, but every time I find myself in a preliminary project-specification meetin... (more)

(LinuxWorld) — So far I've not received much feedback on the key business issues in the first Cocoon article, although quite a lot of comment has come in on two cost related issues: the impact Microsoft licensing has on hardware choices and the need to use BizTalk. No one ... (more)

(LinuxWorld) — About a month ago, the SANS Institute, in cooperation with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, released its list of "The Twenty Most Critical Internet Security Vulnerabilities (Updated) - The Experts' Consensus" for 2002. The information provided was p... (more)

(LinuxWorld) — Nichievo Inc. (a fictional company based on actual companies in this business) insures receivables by assessing qualifying credit transactions and, for a fee, guaranteeing some level of payment. This may seem like an odd business, but they provide a valuable ... (more)

(LinuxWorld) — This is the first installment of a series comparing the implementation results for real business applications. We'll examine business-application implementation using Unix tools and ideas and how this plan of attack compares to what happens when the same apps... (more)

(LinuxWorld) — Linux gets a lot of press these days, but much of it appears condescending and is more about the phenomenon of its emergence and growth than it is about the value and use of the technology. That may be about to change, and for the better. As a group, the so-c... (more)

(LinuxWorld) - My story Why you should take a Mac user to lunch generated a lot of e-mail, most of it positive -- a welcome change from the deluge of hate mail generated by my series on mainframe Linux. I particularly liked one because he really said it all in a few words: Date: ... (more)

(LinuxWorld) -- Here's a blinding insight for you: Moore's Law applies only to hardware, not to the total cost of systems. What sparked this recognition of the glaringly obvious was a review of Apple's new Xserve (a dual-processor 1U blade server) and some thinking about what th... (more)

(LinuxWorld) -- Part 1 in this series showed: The high-end z900 lists for around $5 million to start Offers a maximum of 64 gigabytes of real memory and 16 CPUs running at 770-MHz Is designed for high-speed batch processing, not interactive user support. There seem to be no clear... (more)

Good news about UTS The article contains a reference to Amdahl's mid-1980s UTS product and asked if anyone knew what happened to it since. Seems it's alive and well: Dear Mr. Murphy, UTS is very much alive and kicking. Check out our Web page at: http://www.utsglobal.com We are ... (more)

(LinuxWorld) -- Editor's note: The "I" in this story belongs to a systems consultant brought in to advise the executive committee on the choices they face with respect to Information Systems (IS) operations and an internally generated systems change proposal. Martin Cutter Mills... (more)

(LinuxWorld) -- Editor's note: The "I" in this story belongs to a systems consultant brought in to advise the executive committee on the choices they face with respect to Information Systems (IS) operations and an internally generated systems change proposal. Martin Cutter Mills... (more)

(LinuxWorld) -- Editor's note: The "I" in this scenario is that of a systems consultant brought in as part of a team whose aim is to help a small-business owner plot a long-term survival strategy for her company. Gerda Andersen Printing, its staff and plans, are fabrications but t... (more)

(LinuxWorld) -- Editor's note: The "I" in this scenario is that of a hapless systems consultant who didn't do his homework before setting off to meet the client. The Happy Valley Tax Authority, its staff and mandates, are fabrications but the situation presented, and the remedies... (more)